Biography

Dr. Coathup qualified in Medical Cell Biology from the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom in 1992 before furthering her knowledge with a PhD in orthopedic implant fixation.  Her research project focused on the conception and development of a novel design of implant for bone cancer patients, a design that has since been used successfully in patients.  She carried out and completed her PhD in 1999 at the Institute of Orthopedics, Division of Surgery and Interventional Science, University College London (UCL) based at the internationally-leading Royal National Orthopedic Hospital in Stanmore, UK.   She became an Assistant Professor at UCL in 2001, followed by an Associate Professor position before becoming Head of the Center for Tissue and Cell Research at UCL and Divisional Head of Athena SWAN and Women in Science in 2014.  In October 2017, Melanie joined the College of Medicine, University of Central Florida as a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Biionix Cluster.

Over the last 24 years, Dr. Coathup has worked in Biomedical Engineering and orthopedic innovation with the view of investigating and applying scientific discovery to improve the treatment and care of patients.  During her career and in collaboration with fellow scientists, clinicians, engineers and orthopedic manufacturing companies, her research has focused on improving orthopedic implant fixation and enhancing bone regeneration, focusing on translational themes that include biomaterials, stem cells, the design and follow-up of implants, implant infection and novel synthetic bone graft substitute materials.

Her work includes the development of a novel synthetic bone substitute material Inductigraft® to boost bone repair and regeneration, which is mainly used in spinal fusion surgery and marketed by Baxter Healthcare.  Her research excellence has been recognized internationally through her publications and through receiving several prestigious UK, European and International prizes from her peers.  She has successfully supervised MD and PhD research students, undergraduate and graduate research projects and examined over 100 graduate theses besides lecturing to undergraduate and graduate students.

Recent Publications

2023

– Omer M, Ngo C, Ali H, Orlovskaya N, Cheong VS, Ballesteros A, Garner MT, Wynn A, Martyniak K, Wei F, Collins BE, Yarmolenko SN, Asiatico J, Kinzel M, Ghosh R, Meckmongkol T, Calder A, Dahir N, Gilberston T, Sankar J, Coathup M. The effect of omega-9 on bone viscoelasticity and strength in an ovariectomized diet-fed murine model. Nutrients, 2023.

 – Caldwell M, Hughes M, Wei F, Ngo C, Pascua R, Sindu Pugazhendhi A, Coathup M. The promising applications of D-amino acids in periprosthetic joint infection. Bone Research, 2023.

2022

– Nierenberg D, Flores O, Fox D, Sip YYL, Finn CM, Ghozlan H, Cox A, Coathup M, McKinstry KK, Zhai L, Khaled AR. Macromolecules Absorbed from Influenza Infection-Based Sera Modulate the Cellular Uptake of Polymeric Nanoparticles. Biomimetics (Basel). 2022 Nov 30;7(4):219. doi: 10.3390/biomimetics7040219.

– Pan RL, Martyniak K, Karimzadeh M, Gelikman DG, DeVries J, Sutter K, Coathup M, Razavi M, Sawh-Martinez R, Kean TJ. Systematic review on the application of 3D-bioprinting technology in orthoregeneration: current achievements and open challenges. J Exp Orthop. 2022 Sep 19;9(1):95.doi: 10.1186/s40634-022-00518-3.

– Bayat N, Davey DD, Coathup MJ, Park J-H. White Blood Cell Classification Using Multi-Attention Data Augmentation and Regularization. Big Data Cogn. Comput. 2022, 6(4), 122; https://doi.org/10.3390/bdcc6040122

-Wei F, Neal CJ, Sakthivel TS, Fu Y, Omer M, Adhikary A, Ward S, Ta KM, Moxon S, Molinari M, Yarmolenko SM, Cheong VS, Orlovskaya N, Ghosh R, Seal S, Coathup M. A novel approach for the prevention of ionizing radiation-induced bone loss using a designer multifunctional cerium oxide nanozyme. Bioactive Materials. Mar; 21: 547–565, 10.1016/j.bioactmat.2022.09.011, 2023

–^aFei Wei and ^aKendal Flowerdew, Michael Kinzel, Luigi E Perotti, Jackson Asiatico, Mahmoud Omer, Candice Hovell, Veerle Reumers, Melanie J Coathup. ^aJoint first authors. Changes in Interstitial Fluid flow, Mass Transport and the Bone Cell Response in Microgravity and Normogravity. Bone Research. 2022 Nov 21;10(1):65. doi: 10.1038/s41413-022-00234-9.

-M. Omer, H. Ali, N. Orlovskaya, A. Ballesteros, V. Cheong, K. Martyniak, F. Wei, B. Collins, S. Yarmolenko, J. Asiatico, M. Kinzel, C. Ngo, J. Sankar, A. Calder, T. Gilbertson, T. Meckmongkol, R. Ghosh and M. Coathup. Omega-9 Modifies Viscoelasticity and Augments Bone Strength and Architecture in a High-Fat Diet-Fed Murine Model. (2022) Nutrients. 14(15), 3165.

-Manero A, Crawford K, Prock-Gibbs H, Shah N, Gandi D, Coathup MJ. Improving dsease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment using novel bionic technologies. Bioengineering and Translational Medicine, 2022 Jun 21;8(1):e10359. https://doi.org/10.1002/btm2.10359

-Vishnu J, Manivasagam G, Mantovani D, Udduttula A, Coathup M, Popat KC, Ren P-G, Prashanth KG. Balloon expandible coronary stent materials: a systematic review focused on clinical success. In vitro models. 2022|
https://doi.org/10.1007/s44164-022-00010-3